Wildlife Poaching and Trafficking: Combating a Source of Terrorist Funding

Illegal wildlife poaching and trafficking has destabilized local communities and devastated elephant, rhino, and endangered species populations across Africa. In the last decade, over half of Africa’s elephants have been killed for their ivory. High demand for wildlife products in Asia has driven this surge in poaching and trafficking, threatening the future of these species. Some experts have warned that rhinos and elephants could face near extinction by 2030. Illegal trade in protected wildlife is worth an estimated $7 to $10 billion.

This figure places wildlife trafficking among the most lucrative criminal activities worldwide, rivaling the illegal trade in drugs and arms in size and scope. Wildlife trafficking is known to provide funding to deadly terrorist organizations, such as al-Shabaab and the Lord’s Resistance Army. In the last several years, however, the international community has begun to take meaningful steps toward breaking this trend through financial support, diplomatic pressure, and policy initiatives. The United States, with support from Congress, has been at the forefront of this push, through legislation like the Congo Basin Forest Partnership Act of 2004 and the END Wildlife Trafficking Act of 2016.

Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, discussed key successes, challenges, and next steps for U.S. policymakers.

Events Podcast

Related Publications

From a diplomatic and process standpoint, Geneva Conference on Afghanistan was generally seen as a success by participants (though some countries were not represented at the minister level), and the Afghan government showcased the progress it made in implementing reforms and national priority programs over the past two years. But what did the GCA accomplish substantively, what was left undone, and what questions were left unanswered?

USIP’s new Special Report provides an overview of the different security arrangements China is using to protect its overseas investments and workers, and examines how the Belt and Road Initiative is spurring the rapid growth of China’s domestic private security industry.

Burma’s natural resource economy is inextricably tied to the ongoing armed conflict within the country. Questions of who has what ownership rights over what resources and how these resources can be more equitably shared with the wider population loom large. This report focuses on Burma’s resource-rich ethnic states and territories near the borders with China and Thailand and suggests that a more robust, accountable, and equitable system for managing the country’s resource wealth can help lay down the pathways to peace.

Afghanistan’s last presidential election, in 2014, was followed by—and arguably precipitated—a fiscal crisis, which brought the country to the verge of fiscal collapse. What are the lessons that should be learned from the 2014 experience, and what can be done to avoid a repeat in 2019, which would be even more disastrous?